10 Actionable SEO Tips for Ecommerce Websites

Introduction

What if you could increase organic traffic without wasting tons of money? Sounds like a dream, right? But it’s not. Among the many important lessons that you learn before opening an online store; maintaining SEO to rank higher on search engines and gaining organic traffic is one of the most common practices involved. 

SEO is a common marketing technique, but it is still the hardest to maintain. It can be implemented on various parts of your website, such as the content, site structure, security, and much more. Juggling all this might feel overwhelming, and this is where most businesses fall behind. 

In this article, we have reviewed 10 actionable SEO tips that will help you increase organic traffic, sales, and revenue if implemented correctly. So without further ado, let’s get started!

If you want to be successful in handling an online store, head on to WooKeeper.com for similar tips and tricks, and to discover what plugins to use for your WooCommerce store. 

10 Actionable tips and tricks to improve SEO

1.Keyword Research

One of the first and most important steps of managing SEO is planning a strategy. This strategy should include the type of content you want to create, the target market you want to attract, and the purpose. The first course of action involves conducting keyword research to find out what your customers are searching for. Integrating these words and phrases into your content will help your site rank higher on Google. 

Since eCommerce is a highly competitive market, chances are your target keywords already have a high search volume. Therefore, in such cases, it is good to use long-tail keywords and be specific to your product to gather attention. This also helps you capture the right audience for your blog or product. 

2.Maintain Backlinks

You would receive multiple tips about maintaining on-page SEO, but the real benefit comes from maintaining off-page SEO as well. Multiple backlinks signal to Google that your content is valuable enough that another website has linked to it. This will give your website an advantage, as it will be ranked higher on SERPs.

You need to create a backlink strategy to ensure all your hard work is not going in vain. It is important to choose a relevant blog or website to link back to you. You also need to look at other aspects, such as, are you getting a follow or no follow link? What anchor text are they using? And how much traffic are you gaining?

3.Add Customer Reviews

Did you know that 80% of consumers look for customer reviews before making a purchase? Believe it or not, they hold great value to your website’s SEO and rank. Since the beginning, customer reviews have been used to lure in visitors and entice them to make a purchase. Reviews help build consumer trust and increase your business’s credibility. It is a great form of social proof that also maintains SEO. But how?

According to the ‘Google Local Rankings’ Survey by Darren Shaw, it states that 15% of Google rankings depend on customer reviews, their velocity, diversity, and quantity. Moreover, you can also add reviews in your Schema markup and show star ratings and total reviews on-site.    

4.Attractive Meta-description

Although it is not a ranking signal in Google, meta descriptions still hold significant value to our customers. Meta descriptions appear in search results below your website’s URL. It has a limit of 160 characters in which you have to let the customer know what the article is about and also convince them to click. 

How do you create the perfect meta description for your article? Make sure to appear appealing, relevant, and include your target keywords. You can also add customer reviews, product info, and ratings by using schema markup. 

5.Optimize Schema Markup

Schema markup is a code that shows up in SERPs and provides more information to the customers about your product or article. Schema markup is very important for SEO because 1) it’s a ranking signal for Google and 2) it increases the click-through rate. 

Why is schema markup important? Because it tells users what your article is about, or it provides them with more information about the product. If the user finds relevant information on SERPs alone, they will surely click on your article for more. It is great for your site’s SEO and you can choose to show multiple elements such as reviews, stock availability, product information, star ratings, and much more.  

6.Create Product-specific Content

As mentioned above, the eCommerce market is highly competitive. With many businesses dealing with the same niche and products, it can be difficult to stand out. Similarly, to rank higher, you need to be targeting keywords that are relevant and unique to your blog. 

You can easily do this by creating product-specific content. This will help you add specific keywords that will get the right traffic on your site. For example, say you deal with gardening items such as gardening tools, weed killers, etc. You can create content showing how each tool is used, outline the benefits of a certain organic weed killer, or compare products with each other.  

7.Optimize for Mobile

More than 70% of the customers use their mobile devices to visit a website or place an order. If your website is not optimized for mobile, it will cost you potential customers and SEO. Mobile optimization has a huge potential for increasing SEO, as Google has changed its algorithm into a “mobile-first index”. This means that when your website is ranked and indexed, the mobile website will be checked first. 

Make sure you have a responsive website, with a navigation-friendly design and features that do not disrupt the user experience. Utilize this tip and see an immediate increase in traffic and sales.

8.Create an About-Us Page

Although your ‘About-Us’ page does not help you rank higher on the search results, it does help  Google better understand your business and provides on-site information. You can also add long-tail keywords to your ‘About-Us’ page, which can act as a supporting page for your site. Once a customer clicks through, your ‘About-Us’ page can inform your customers about your history, team, products, work ethic, and much more.

9.Improve Site Speed Performance

For Google, user experience comes first. If your site takes longer than 3 seconds to load (causing a customer to leave your site), your SEO ranking will be negatively impacted. A slower site will result in a higher bounce rate, which will alert Google that your site isn’t fast enough. 

Around 30% of cart abandonment occurs due to a slow-loading site. Thus, it’s important to optimize your site speed by using low-quality product images, and by removing unnecessary plugins and extensions. There are many tools available that can check your site speed and analyze areas of lagging.

10.Add Internal/External Links 

Internal and external links are very important for your site’s SEO. When it comes to internal linking, there is not much effort required. All you have to do is create relevant internal links. This helps increase customer engagement and gives authority to your priority pages. External links require a bit more work. You need to create quality content and earn relevant backlinks. However, it will be worth it as Google will recognize your content as authentic and credible, which helps maintain SEO.

Conclusion 

Maintaining SEO is a difficult job. It requires months of work to show any real results, but it’s not impossible. With our 10 tips and tricks to optimize SEO, you can increase sales and revenue if the tactics are implemented properly. Remember to create relevant content and be consistent to beat your competitors.

The post 10 Actionable SEO Tips for Ecommerce Websites first appeared on The TechWyse ‘Rise to the Top’ Internet Marketing Blog.